Data Harmonisation Put into Practice by the Humboldt Project

Summary

Data Harmonisation Put into Practice by the HUMBOLDT Project

The European project HUMBOLDT (www.esdi-humboldt.eu) running from 2006 to 2010 focuses on these aspect of data harmonisation. 27 partners from 14 European countries representing public administration, research and industry have teamed up to contribute to the implementation of the European Spatial Data Infrastructure (ESDI). The project commenced with a comprehensive state-of-the-art analysis on methods and tools for spatial data and metadata management and harmonisation. Suitable software architectures as well as processes were described and user requirements of different application domains were gathered. This analysis serves as a basis for the continuous development of a software framework and an additional toolset to support spatial data and service providers in offering standardised spatial information by creating partly automated but individually adjustable processes for the harmonisation of spatial data and metadata. Challenging data harmonisation steps, for which no ready-made solution exists, such as conceptual schema translation, were subject to thorough investigation and led to the development of new software solutions.

An important driver for the whole software development process in HUMBOLDT is the establishment of application scenarios from which requirements were drawn and in which the different components are applied and tested under realistic conditions. These nine scenarios (e.g. European Risk Atlas, Ocean, Urban Planning, and Protected Areas) cover the GMES themes and provide real-world use cases covering a wide range of application domains, countries and institutions to enhance visibility of the project results for users. Moreover, the gathered information is very valuable for “how to”-guidelines and best practice examples on how tools and standards can be used to create the ESDI.

The HUMBOLDT results, its expertise as well as the training programme can provide valuable contributions to the implementation of INSPIRE and SDIs at different levels and can help opening up new fields of application for spatial information.